


Blindsight

by Gimmeran21



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Common Cold, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 11:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19666255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimmeran21/pseuds/Gimmeran21
Summary: Matt has a cold and sinks into a depression about his life and blindness. Foggy tries to help.





	Blindsight

Matt Murdock sniffed miserably as he moved lower in the bed and shivered despite the silk sheets and two cashmere blankets covering him. He could barely suppress the hacking cough which sent him into spasms. His ears were blocked up and he could hardly breathe. Although he could cope with broken ribs and deep cuts (admittedly with help from Claire), colds for some reason floored him. His heightened senses were no use to him then. In fact they seemed to make it worse so that his ragged breathing and loud coughing pounded through his head. He had tried hard to meditate to calm himself but couldn’t concentrate enough to focus.

He also got the spins as Foggy had called them and that meant that he couldn’t keep his balance and that meant that he couldn’t walk the streets safely. The last time he’d tried to push through a cold he had got so dizzy that he’d collapsed in the street surrounded by a group of Hell’s Kitchen regulars insisting he go to hospital. Luckily he’d managed to contact Foggy who’d rushed round and mother-henned him for three days alternately scolding him and treating him like a piece of rare bone china (better than glass he supposed). 

He’d known by the middle of yesterday afternoon that he was getting a cold what with the slight tickle in his throat, the vague feeling of malaise and more tellingly with his senses flickering in and out. If he didn’t get out of the office soon that afternoon he wouldn’t be able to make it without arousing Foggy’s mother hen instincts. Really he could manage. He was a grown man after all. He’d take a personal day or two and ride it out. 

Luckily Foggy had been taking a long involved phone call for the past hour and Karen was out of the office researching the background to another case so Matt had slipped out of the office with a quick wave and a muttered “bye”. He heaved a sigh of relief as he went out of the office then hailed a cab before he developed the motion sickness that accompanied his colds. 

He’d learned to overcome and ignore his blindness in many ways. His enhanced other senses gave him more than most blind people but when he was feeling like this he could only think of the adjustments he constantly had to make as a blind man living in a sighted world and what he had lost through not being able to see. He hated being this self-pitying and it almost seemed to be a betrayal of himself and all the other people who were in the same situation and who didn’t have his heightened powers to rely on. But at times like this there was a voice in his mind keening for what he had lost. He would give anything to see the sky just one more time.

He didn’t know what Foggy and Karen looked like. Hell, he didn’t know what he looked like! Of course he remembered from his sighted days that he had dark hair and eyes and pale, almost white skin but had his face changed much? Using his enhanced senses he could get an impression of people’s faces but no real detail. He wasn’t vain enough to ask but Foggy had called him handsome (however that translated) and girlfriends had commented on how well put together he was but it wasn’t the same as seeing for himself. Karen and Foggy had told him what their eye and hair colour was but he had little idea of the different shades of colour. 

As far as his work was concerned he had to dress in a certain way which meant nothing too off the wall. Although Matt hated to ask for help, he had asked Foggy to select some suits, shirts and ties that would co-ordinate and had then asked him to tell him what colours they were so that he could create Braille labels for their hangers. It all took extra effort to make sure that everything had its place and was always put back just so. He had to be extremely organised all the time. Once he had been distracted and put the salt in the sugar jar and found out the hard way. When he had girlfriends over they tended to “help” by tidying up which meant moving things from their appointed place and then he’d waste time having to feel for them. 

Stick had been contemptuous of Matt’s feelings about his blindness. He heard his sneering voice in his head “Cry baby, you gotta get your shit together. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself. Now try that move again”. Stick had said that it was a sign of weakness to rely on others. He had thought that had worked for him until the day had come when he had made the mistake of giving Stick a present. Stick had walked out the same day leaving Matt alone again. 

He hadn’t been able to participate in college life like other students. After a few disastrous attempts to take part in some social events he’d given up. Either they parked the “poor blind guy” in the corner and then ignored him or else his fellow students buttonholed him and asked him intrusive questions about how he coped with being blind. He just didn’t feel like making the extra effort to show he was the same as them. Anyway it was difficult trying to cut out the extraneous noise to identify who out of dozens of people was talking to him.

It was surprising how stupid some of these supposedly clever people were. Foggy had been an honourable exception and since the day they had met he had treated him as a friend who just happened not to be able to see but since then Foggy had admitted that he had always felt sorry for him after all. That confession had really hurt Matt as Foggy had meant it to. He’d been as good at hiding that as Matt had been at hiding his Daredevil activities and his enhanced senses. And after all what was so creepy about listening to heartbeats? He couldn’t see the expressions on people’s faces or their body language like Foggy could. 

And Foggy’s comments about Matt’s ability to identify beautiful women – didn’t he realise it was often Foggy’s reaction to women that gave Matt the clue about how good looking they were? Although he had to admit that sometime his blindness had helped him to get girlfriends. Foggy called it the “handsome wounded duck” thing and put like that it had sounded quite amusing. It wasn’t. 

Sure it made him feel good to date beautiful women until he found out that some didn’t want to be with a man who couldn’t appreciate their looks in the usual way or the effort they had made to look their best or who needed to have his surroundings described to him. Often because of that he felt that the girls weren’t seeing him at all. He was either a cause or a pity case but when he’d heard from three floors away “I wonder what it’s like to sleep with a blind man? Could add something to the whole experience. Bet you $50 I can get him into bed by the end of the week and I’ll tell you what it was like” he hadn’t dated for some time after that.

Elektra had been the only woman who totally “got” him. Pity was completely alien to her and she had always treated him as an equal. 

Matt had had a reputation as a swot at college. He’d be up in the library most of the time when he wasn’t at lectures but few people seemed to realise that he had to spend that amount of time just to “read” the textbooks and lecture notes and then produce his assignments. Yes he could “read” the printed page if the ink was sufficiently raised but it was very tiring as was reading Braille or listening to the robotic voice of his text reader. Sometimes Foggy read chapters to him as a change but he couldn’t expect him to do that very often and besides Foggy had his own work to do.

How could he hope to be a lawyer in the real world for any length of time? Sure he’d aced his exams, passed summa cum laude but who was he kidding? He’d needed a lot more help now he and Foggy had their own law firm. Karen and Foggy would eventually get fed up and leave him. Anyway things hadn’t been so good between him and Foggy since Foggy had found out about Daredevil and that was another thing. He’d done his best but what real good had his Daredevil activities actually done? Suddenly the cloud of depression overwhelmed him and he couldn’t bear it any more.

Foggy had thought he’d just drop by. Matt hadn’t picked up his last two voice mails or his text messages. So he let himself in, just checking. No one in the living room so he went in the bedroom. When he got there it was to see a slightly moving heap of bedclothes from which came a muffled raspy cough and what sounded suspiciously like crying.

Foggy tried to pull back the covers but Matt kept pulling them out of his hands more and more desperately as he also tried to make himself as small as possible by curling in on himself. After a considerable struggle which Foggy only won because Matt’s movements were getting weaker and weaker, Foggy pulled the covers away. He grasped Matt by his arms. Matt’s eyes were darting from side to side as though he was looking for something and his face was covered in sweat as tears tracked down his cheeks.

Foggy tried to get his attention but Matt was in another place entirely, too far away for Foggy to reach him so Foggy carefully pulled Matt towards him. Matt started to struggle again but gradually calmed down enough for Foggy to hold him closely. “Matt, what happened? Come back buddy”. The answer he got was a soft mumble between deep sighs. “ Matt, come on buddy, answer me”. Finally he was rewarded with a faint “Can’t do it, can’t do it”, repeated again and again.

Although Foggy knew that Matt couldn’t see him, he looked into his eyes and said, “Matt, breathe, everything’s going to be alright. Come back buddy.” Finally Matt’s eyes stopped their searching and his mumbling became clearer. “Can’t carry on, can’t do it anymore. I’m useless.” 

Oh no not this again, Foggy sighed to himself. He’d had to pull Matt through some similar episodes in the past. He should have realised yesterday that Matt wasn’t right. The trouble with his friend was that he was very good at hiding how he felt until he was teetering on the edge and about to fall into the abyss. 

“Right, as you are starting to smell like an overripe cheese I think a shower is in order first, then some takeout and then we’ll talk. So come on out of your pit and shower while I change your sheets”.

A few minutes later a rather shaky Matt emerged from the bedroom looking slightly better but still not his usual self. Foggy tapped the back of his hand. “Tissues. The box is on the coffee table and is on your twelve in front of your chair. I’m going to get the Nyquil. I know you don’t like taking medicines but this is one time you are going to so just put up with it” 

They waited in silence for the takeout to arrive. Once it had arrived, Matt actually ate some of the dishes which were from the only Thai place that he would eat from, because of you know, hygiene issues. Foggy had been prepared to use all his tricks like charm, persuasion. lawyerly argument and threats to get Matt to eat so perhaps he was beginning to come out of his funk. 

“ Right Matt, what were you thinking? Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling ill? You’ve done this before and I really wish you had told me”. 

“I don’t want to be even more of a burden to you and Karen. You already have to make so many allowances for me”.

“Listen and listen good. Sure we have to make some allowances for you but you’re a brilliant lawyer and great friend. You have to make allowances too - for my terrible singing and Karen’s awful coffee. If we didn’t have you where would we be? I’d be a butcher and Karen would be the worst barista in the world”. 

Matt smiled slightly. “Look Matt, Karen and I both love you and just because you need some help sometimes it isn’t a disaster. You help us and we help you. That’s the way it should be”. 

Matt smiled again and this time it was nearer his usual one and then he yawned. 

“Looks like the Nyquil’s working. Let’s get you to bed. I’ll take the couch tonight. Matt, objection overruled. I’m staying and I will be until you’re fit to come to work. Karen can hold down the fort until then”. 

Having got a very drowsy but relaxed Matt to bed Foggy settled down on the couch for the night well aware that this wouldn’t be the last time he would be rehearsing the same arguments with Matt about when to ask for help. Foggy knew that despite their talk (or rather his talk) it wouldn’t be the last time that this would happen. After all how did you overcome the months of brainwashing Matt had undergone and his often crap childhood? You didn’t. You just gave him help when needed even if not asked for because Matt was your best friend and you didn’t want to lose him.


End file.
